Kiwi actor a star attraction

11 June 2004 — 10:00am

Emily Barclay normally works in an Auckland video store. So being a star attraction at the opening of the Sydney Film Festival tonight will be quite a change.

The 19-year-old was discovered by the same casting agent who found Anna Paquin for The Piano and Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider. Both received Oscar nominations - with Paquin winning - for their first film roles.

Barclay wasn't thinking that far ahead as she gazed around the ornate interior of the State Theatre yesterday.

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"It seems very staggering," she said of where her first major role had taken her.

"Film takes such a long time from start to finish that you don't think about this sort of thing. When it happens, it's just so surreal. You think back to the long late nights working out in the cold."

Barclay plays an inquisitive 16-year-old who disappears in the mystery-drama In My Father's Den. Suspicion falls on a disillusioned war photographer played by British actor Matthew MacFadyen.

Directed by Brad McGann, the New Zealand-British co-production was only finished this week. He said precisely seven people had seen the only public screening in Auckland. That left him excited but also apprehensive about opening the festival.

"It's terrifying," he said. "I'm just looking at how many people can fit into the theatre and thinking they're all going to be watching our film."

McGann said casting agent Diana Rowan, who discovered Barclay, had a gift for seeing talent. And he believes the young actress is up there with Paquin and Castle-Hughes as a discovery.

"Teenagers quite often act the part but Emily becomes the part," he said. "That's something you can't teach. I don't want to pre-empt the audience's opinion but she definitely has equal potential to those two actors."

McGann stumbled onto Barclay's non-acting job this week. "It's so weird. I went to take a video back and there was Emily."

The festival, which screens more than 200 features, documentaries and shorts, runs until June 26. As well as the State Theatre, there are screenings at the Dendy Opera Quays, Opera House Studio, Art Gallery of NSW and University of Technology, Sydney.

Tickets for eight sessions, including the Jim Jarmusch comedy Coffee and Cigarettes and the documentary The Ister, had sold out by last night.